Sunday 27 February 2011

I like Punk Rock.

I like Mudhoney very much, you must know that.
I like Mark Arm even more- He's like 47 now and BY GOD has he still got it. That's all I'm saying.
So you can imagine how pleased I was to stumble across this track on the 'Roots of Nirvana' CD compliation I got with last month's Mojo.

This song, In'N'Out of Grace is probably the definition of the early Punk Rock/Grunge movement in Seattle in the early nineties. Mudhoney were destined for stardom and they were always considered to probably be bigger than Nirvana. Sadly, they never made it that far into the mainstream, but they are one of the BEST to come out of that era, with Mark Arm still managing stuff at Sub-Pop, which I find pretty cool. He's very reliable when it comes to staying himself. Through everything. Mudhoney didn't make any mistakes. They just weren't Nirvana.



Hear that scream :"JESUS TAKE ME TO A HIGHER PLACE!"

Have a good week folks,

riotgrrllivesx

Sunday 6 February 2011

The Ultimate Nirvana Skill- Improvisation.

I'm very agitated at this very moment at the stresses of modern life as a 15 year old teenager in Britain, so I think it's the perfect time for a blog post.

Okay, admit it, everyone has done it: Improvised.

Whether you haven't got the appropriate lie set up for your parents to swallow, you improvise. When your music falls off the stand at a concert with whatever instrument you happen to play, you get pulled up for a speech at an awards ceremony at school/the oscars (delete as appropriate!), you have to create the perfect arrangement in a week and you've done hardly any work: You improvise. These may not be your desired situations, but when faced with the scary, the extreme, the unexpectable, the annoyance: you improvise it. Everyone's done it, and it's an essential skill that musicians derive over their lifetime: the improvisation. I did it this friday, in an own arrangement, usually solely modal scales and blues scales. I pulled it off, and apparently it sounded "Free and funky". Kudos for me!

The way it's used in Popular culture is interesting: Blues, R&B, even Dance Club Music...

But this is by far the best one I've seen, and it's relevant to the theme of Nirvana on this blog. The scream at 2:26 is singularly the best Nirvana moment I have EVER seen, so I thought I'd just share it with the world. The improvisation at 2:11 is certainly that of a real musician in a real band, where his guitar cuts out eventually (Note: this is French television they are all dressed up for) and he throws it down in a rage. The rest is his mind acting spontaneously, and if the scream at 2:26 wasn't already planned because it was in the song already, the sudden "Kurt Cobain does Jazz Solo Act" wasn't expected: the way he throws the microphone stand around is like something reminiscent of the jazz age.

A impeccably passionate performer, to say the least. And the sexiest (that tie and waistcoat- phwoarrr + anger at his guitar blowing)

riotgrrrlives|x